RELIGIOUS WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 209, 3 September 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

RELIGIOUS WORLD.

PRESENT-DAY OUTLOOK. it NEW BOAT-OLD ROCKS." THE ETERNAL FIXITIES. Subjoined is an extract from a sermon preached recently in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, by the Rev. Dr. Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham. The text was taken from the 119 th Psalm: "I ee'e that all things come to an end, but Thy commandment is exceeding broad." Brethren, we are living now in an age of rapid and revolutionary change. So many things that once seemed firmly fixed in the acceptance of civilised mankind havo been quite suddenly challenged, condemned, and contemptuously cast aside. We are tempted to think that nothing is really stable, entitled to our reverent regard, justly ovracd as authoritative. Even religion has taken the aspect of —and is quite commonly spoken about as if it were —no more than one among the many products of the evolutionary process. Morality, for multitudes, is sinking into nothing more binding and awful than one of the many conventions which man has created for his own convenience, and which man is free at his own choice to modify or cancel. Duty, for the child of the twentieth century, is no more what it was to Wordsworth, "Stern daughter of the voice of God," but also, like everything else, ia of the earth, earthy. The illusion of stability has been m killed by the experience of the last * generation. Less than one-third of the twentieth • century has passed, and already the changes which it has witnessed in the aspect, habit and outlook of civilised society have far outstripped the elow movement of centuries. This transformation of secular conditions has told patently and for the most part mischievously on the spiritual life of mankind. "Look carefully, therefore, how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the 'days are evil."

The first century, like the twentieth, was a troubled age, and in the view of the great apostle it was en age more than commonly filled with moral and spiritual peril; though as we look back upon it, we can see that there was that then beginning among men which in the course of time would regenerate the human lot and refashion society. So to-day we may not doubt that there are taking root among us factors which will disclose in good time the characters of beneficence which, as yet we cannot foresee. But for tho tima being, then and now, the times are eviL . St. Paul's warning, therefore, comes directly home to ourselves. Do not be ashamed of being religious. Do not let slip the ol< grand faith in duty. Remember that all the changes of opinion and circumstances which are passing over the world do not alter the fundamental conditions under which human life must ever proceed. Religion is concerned with those unchanging fundamental conditions. The roar and rush of the wind-driven billows leave the vast rocks of the Atlantic coast undisturbed. There is a parallel in the world of the spirit. Religion attests not the superficial movements, but the eternal fixities of existence. "The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not eeen are eternal." The Highlanders of the western coasts of Scotland have a short proverb which will serve very well to sum up the moral of my preaching: "New boat —old rocks." Do not suppose that as you in your turn essay the dangerous voyage of life you can afford to disregard the long experience of mankind. Be sure that, as Coleridge eaid, "Not without celestial, observation can ever terrestrial charts be accurately constructed.,, God grant that when you in your turn are looking back on life you may be able to make your own the whole confession of the Psalmist: "I see that all things, come to an end; but Thy commandment is exceeding broad." itEAL RELIGION. (By IDE. j. C. CAKLILE, an:, G.8.E.) In the Bible there are two descriptions of real religion: one in , the words of the prophet Micah: "Hβ hath ehown thee, oh man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee "but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah vi., 8). There are the marks of the Old Testament religion at its noblest and purest. To the superficial observer they may appear on the low- level of life: the ordinary flowers that grow by the wayside, yet they are all that God required and in very truth they are the product of the Holy Spirit. These are the qualities which are the hall-mark of the sainte of Cod, and they demand .all the resources that heaven puts at our disposal. The otlier definition is 'in the New Testament. St. James writes:' "Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit the fatherless find widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world." There are just three sides to it. Living in the sight of God, that is God consciousness; personal purity, keeping oneself unspotted from the world, and in between, practical kindness. Stripped of all theology, metaphor and ceremony, that is'religion, to trust God and to do jrood. It is but another way of saying: '•Do all to the glory of God." Bring your Christianity into every thing. It i<3 not simply for Sunday services and prayer meetings as a garment that can ho put on and taken off, it is to govern (he commonest act, even eating and drinking. Perhaps character is more revealed in our eating and drinking than we dream. A man may show more of his real uelf by the way in which he t;ikes or gives the titbits of the joint than in anything he says.

"The sdfish, the cynical, the supercilious never can see any God •worth seeing. As of old it is the one who, docth the will, of God' with a purity of heart that seeth God."—Bishop F. J. McConnell.

A prayer: Almighty God, Ruler of the nations, grant, we beseech Thee, that those to whom has been given the responsibility for the government of this Dominion, may keep their hearts and minds in daily communion with Thee, that they may form such decisions as shall l>e in harmony with Thy will, and 'shall, promote its 'beet interests. Through. Jesns Christ oar Lord. Amen.

MAKING THE BEST OF LIFE. THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS. (By S.) Those who have read the story of John Halifax, Gentleman, will remember how he took his friend Phineas to see his room. It was an attic. They sat together on the bed, a mere sacking stuffed with straw. The attic was very low and small, but John gazed on it with an air of proud possession. "I declare I shall be as happy as a king," he cried. "Only look out of the window." Out of the window was a picture of incessant variety, quiet beauty, and soothing charm. That attic, as some one has said, made John Halifax one of the noblest figures in English literature. The story came into my mind as I was thinking of the patriarch Isaac forbidden to make his way to Egypt, as he desired to do, and made to stay where he was, and to stay all his life, and, instead of fretting at the frustration of his desire, continuing happy and contented. And then I thought of the many who would fain travel far afield, like Isaac, and see other Land's and other peoples, and of the many others who are ambitious to set out on a wider and more promising field of enterprise, finding themselves confronted with closed doors they are unable to open. Providence does not appear to them in a dream or vision as. He may have done to Isaac, and bid them remain where they are; He appears to them in some circumstance or other wh'.ch makes it as clear to them, as his experience made it clear to Isaac, that they must stay where they are amid the same surroundings all their life, it may be in an attic, it may -be on a bed of pain; and yet, life has its compensations for us all, whatever our lot may be. It has been truly said that the disadvantages of any particular place are balanced by advantages of some kind; there is no inconvenience in life, but has some compensating benefit if we only have the faith and the patience to find it. God Iblessed Isaac in his restricted experience of life, and He can bless us, too, whose experience of life may be restricted. And we can escape a good deal of the bustle and fever and fret, and many_ of the inconveniences that travel as well as increased responsibilities so often entail, and can have staunch friends, and a better understanding of ourselves and of other people, and be dauntlessly gay to boot. We can even 'be badly off and not always in the best of health, and still enjoy life and be full of spirit and gaiety. Isaac, acquiescing in the will of Providence, and John Halifax, proud and contented in his attic, tell us the secret of happiness, and, whatever the path of our vocation may be, and whatever our lot, if we are of like spirit with them, the power and the grace and the beauty of the meek and lowly Saviour will rest on Uβ, and give us e place in the affections of those who know us, and a nobleness that the realisation of our dreams and longings would never- have given tie.

NOTES IN PASSING. A text: "All things work together for good to them that love God."—Romans, viiL, 28. A New York philanthropist, Mr. John Markle, has given 100,000 dollars (about £20,000), to the Salvation Army to help in their emergency relief work. H the campaign of Christian witness that has been carried on this week is as successful as the mission that was recently carried on in Invercargill, it will be for the good of the whole community. A Salvation Army officer in Finland was recently accosted in the street by a poor, ill-dressed old man who doffed his cap, and said in his own language: "I honour you, although I am a sinner. You do not talk about religion only) you do it." Dr. Fosdick in his recently published book, "As I See Religion," saye that irreligion takes the bounce out of life, robs it of radiance, resilience, zest. It need not make life wicked, it may not even make it tragic, but it certainly makes it trivial. A Dunfermline gentleman, now in hie 85th year, has been an elder for the long period of 60 years. That term, however, has been capped by a lady in her 102 nd year, living in Closeburn, Dumfriesshire. She has been a Sunday school teacher for no less than 84 years. Spurgeon once eaid that children need more than four walls to shelter them; they need a home where the virtues of a Christian character shall be fost'erei and developed. That is what the Auckland orphanages and social service organisations are striving to do for the children in the homes under their charge. The late Lord Curzon once asserted that no Christian missionary would ever put liia foot in Isfahan, the sacred Persian city. It is a tribute to the zeal and courage of Christian missionaries that there are to-day in Isfahan a Church, a school, and a hospital, together with a Christian community of 500 converts from Islam. Professor E. Julius Richter, of Berlin, in an article in one of the Home papers some time ago on the anti-Church movement in Germany; says that it is being stirred up periodically by free-thinkers and socialistic circles. There is also an association that aims at creating a thoroughbred Germanic race purged from all Semitic infusion. It has set itself to .combat Christianity as an alien religion, and would fain galvanise into life the ancient Valhalla of the , Germanic gods. This group carries on an insidious, pseudo-scientific propaganda and stirs up strife in public meetings. The most dangerous movement, he says, is connected with Communism, and is propagated among the working classes by Russia in every possible way.

Professor Lamont, epeaking recently in Edinburgh at a meeting under the auspices of the Lord's Day Observance Association, made some observations that are deserving of note. Here is one: "It is pitiful to see in every generation multitudes of people hypnotised by the idea of the sanctity of modern forces. It is not a new form of idolatry. Bacon called it one of the idols of the human mind, but, no doubt in our time it is more widely advertised than ever it was, and advertisement catches the crowd enormously." He quotes a fine saying by Dr. Hertz, the Chief Rabbi, in a recent book of his: "Far more than lerael has kept the Sabbath; it is the Sabbath that has kept Israel"; and adds: "The real trouble of the world today ie in the soul. All else is in the nature of symptom. The neglected soul of the world is having its revenge, and will have it increasingly until the neglect fa repaired." ,